Wayports is an idea whose time has come. It calls for planning a nationwide system of wayports integrated with air traffic control, highways and rail. It would be planned as an integrated system rather than independently of each system as is done now.
State and local governments do not have the jurisdictional coverage or legislative authority to go beyond their borders and plan nationwide or regional systems of anything, especially transportation systems.
President Eisenhower recognized this when highways were experiencing gridlock as aviation is today. He knew the federal government was the only entity that could transcend state and local politics to plan a nationwide highway system with a 50-year reservoir of capacity. He created the "Interstate Highway System" and where would we be today without it. When a nationwide air traffic control system was needed, Congress charged FAA to plan and develop it because there was no local or state entity that could build, operate and maintain a nationwide system.
To accomplish this requries change in planning and decision making going beyond existing political jurisdictions and traditional methods and processes. New innovative, non-traditional and cost effecient approaches must be adopted with long-term system capacity addressed in a different way than the past.
Failure to do this will cause massive airline delays and congestion costing $10B annually to continue. It will require the Federal Government to ration airport access using congestion management, selling slots, peak hour pricing, de-peaking, re-regulation, and banning general aviation. Rationing is an admission of failure and a disgrace to America's innovation and creativeness. Planning must start now to aovid this and bring new capacity on line in 10 years.
Only 2 new large hub airports have been built in the last 50 years at Dallas and Denver. None are coming on line anytime soon. Supplemental airports like a Wayport to relieve and off-load the existing gridlocked system have never been built.
A Wayport System is a much less costly atlernative both financially and environmentally to provide long-term capacity. Wayports serve domestic and international origin/destination (O&D) and connecting passengers, express mail, U.S. and International mail, general aviation, aircraft maintenance, manufacturing, commercial and industrial sites. Wayports will accommodate next generation 500-800 passenger large aircraft that are entering the fleet and will double in 20 years.
Wayports would off-load existing inner city airports. Passengers would be attracted to a Wayport to avoid inner city surface congestion and congested hubs. Many would come by express highways, regional and high speed rail links. They would be the economic nucleus of new Airport Cities.
The new airport at Peotone, Illinois meets all Wayport criteria and can be the cornerstone of the Interstate Aviation System. It's a large greenfield site on the fringe of Chicago. It will reduce costs, environmental concerns and noise and emissions by off-loading O'Hare and other congested northeast hubs facing gridlock. Wayports can also be located at underutilized hubs like Pittsburgh and St. Louis where connecting operations have been eliminated. Former military airfields can also be used.
America needs to get on with planning this nationwide system. National leadership and funding priorities are needed to create an Interstate Aviation System with Wayports as the cornerstone.
A Plan and Vision created by a Commission appointed by the President is needed. The Commission would be limited to recommendations for implementation and sources of funding.
The plan would also address globalization that depends on air links between continents because highway and rail links don't exist and ships are too slow. A Wayport functions as a collection/distribution center serving all U.S and global aeronautical activities especially cargo and goods from emerging economies like China and India. Cargo operations could be the initial activity until passenger traffic builds up.
Transportation Research Board (TRB} study "Innovative Approaches to Addressing Aviation Capacity Issues" (ACRP 03-10) is a Wayports study limited to 2 coastal mega-regions instead of all 11 mega-regions. Wayports should be addressed and why not? TRB published a previous report saying "No other approach appears to be capable of handling the 200-300% increase in travel that could develop by 2020". Following are excerpts from the TRB scope that confirms Wayports is a valid concept.
"Traditional approaches are unlikely to address problems that extend beyond current jurisdictional and legislative authorities of existing agencies. Current airport planning is done at three levels: airport specific (master plan), metropolitan, regional and state system planning. Those focused plans are not sufficient to address capacity limitations. The effects that the traffic from major airports has on each other needs to be better understood.
New and innovative processes/methodologies are needed if aviation capacity issues are going to be successfully addressed. High-density areas invite an entirely new approach for planning and decision making that goes beyond existing practices for transportation planning and programming usually accomplished within political jurisdictions or regions. Optimizing available resources for expansion of transportation infrastructure to accommodate anticipated growth should be a key consideration.
The objective of the research is to develop integrated strategic actions to enhance decision making to address constrained aviation system capacity and growing travel demand. The research is intended to be used by transportation agencies and operators as well as for informing public officials at the federal, state and local levels. Aviation system capacity issues (current and future) that may arise from constraints related to such things as airports physical features, airspace, airline practices and legally enforceable policies need to be described. Existing passenger air travel patterns that include factors such as origin and destination versus connecting, origin and destination by city pair, and domestic versus international need to be characterized
Current and potential demand and capacity of existing and planned highway and intercity rail alternatives that could have the potential to complement the air mode need to be characterized. Identify and quantify, to the extent possible, capacity shortfalls for the air, highway and intercity rail systems. Identify qualitatively and quantitatively the social, economic, environmental and energy consequences of not addressing deficiencies identified.
Opportunities to address the deficiencies of air, intercity rail and highway systems need to be identified. Opportunities may include such things as institutional, jurisdictional, regulatory, financial, operational and infrastructure changes. Integrated strategic actions that can lead to a vision and enhanced decision-making framework for advancing innovative solutions appropriate to capacity issues are to be proposed".
Comment to theway@wayports.com or jsheppard@bellsouth.net who is a former FAA official.
